Jubilee Explains it All
by Complica
Summary: I posted this elsewhere and am now rewriting it in light of X2 plot bunnies that won't lay off. L/R shipping but the story is all Jubilee dialog. R&R ~enjoy ;)


Tall, dark and growls isn't gonna be taking up residence in the Happy X- Mansion any time soon.  
  
Everyone else seems to think so, but everyone else is full of shit.  
  
Mr. Summers keeps mumbling on and on about the anti-theft device he's gonna install on his bike as soon as it's back. But there's a glint in his eyes when he says it. It's not just the bike he wants back. Though he'd put me through the wringer if I ever implied it out loud, he admires the guy. The very first thing you learn on the streets is to read into what people don't say. And after a month of observing, I can tell you this much without a doubt in my mind, Summers was ready to put an end to the resident southern belle that night on the torch. Sure, none of them talk about it much, but all the students have heard the rumors. And I see the way Cyke looks at her, with gratitude. But it isn't really for her, it's for himself. You see, if he hadn't come back to the school with Rogue healthy, safe, and swooning, the rest of us wouldn't feel safe here anymore. His position as fearless leader demands that no matter what, each one of us kids can look at him and think that we'll be all right, that he'll protect us even when the chips are down. It isn't even that he wouldn't want to. But for Cyke, everything reverts back to formula, to numbers, and in the game of numbers, one student does not an entire world make. I have no illusions that he would choose to save me if more lives were at stake then mine. He would try, no doubt. But if it came down to me or a group of people in danger, and one of us had to buy the farm, you could say adios to the world's favorite sparkler. Wolvie however, is the type that does what his gut tells him, numbers be damned. And as much as that bit of his personality irritates Cyke, he knows that's what kept the X-men from bringing home a body that night. He thinks that Wolverine will realize how much the X-men need him and come running back to don the leather. Because, by the numbers, that's what should happen.  
  
I think Stormy understands a bit more then Cyke. She reminds me of the white Siberian tigers we see at the zoo every year, the ones that have never seen the wild. She isn't wild herself, but she has enough of it in her blood to know a wild thing when she sees one. And she knows that wild things can never be caged. The problem is, she  
  
doesn't see the cage. And that is exactly what this place is.  
  
Granted, a very nice cage. I'm not complaining. but still, a cage. Beyond these walls is a world none of us can really live in. It doesn't belong to us and it never will, despite all of Prof. X's good intentions. It doesn't really matter much if the bars of this cage were meant to keep others out, it just as easily keeps us in. You can tell the difference between an animal that was born in captivity and one that was captured. The ones like Storm, their whole world is the cage. There is the rage and the fury of a wild thing hidden just behind their eyes, but they don't really know how to release it. The ones like Wolvie, all they see are the walls and they'll drive themselves mad trying to find a way out. Storm thinks Wolvie will come back to the mansion to find peace, once he has released his rage and found his answers. She may be right. He could come back after he's gotten all the `grrr' out of his system, but he'd never be able to stay. The cage would start to close in on him.  
  
The southern' belle wanders around all day with the man's tags dangling from her neck and a smile that speaks of secrets she isn't sharing. I have no doubt she does. If I heard her right about her mutation thingy she's got the big lug in her head now, grring, beer-guzzling, womanizing and all. Almost everyone else thinks it's just a crush.Kitty thinks it's "O' so romantic". The girl reads way too much Danielle Steele  
  
And Bobby stares at her with big disappointed eyes when Rogue isn't looking. Not that she would notice much with the swooning and everything. Bobby's a slow one. Slow.. but bright. I think he finally got that a part of Rogue doesn't belong to him and never will.  
  
Red and the Big X just sit around all smug, like they know everything. I guess that comes with being a telepath. I suppose they're thinking along the same lines as Cyke. Wolvie will go out into the great white north and discover that he really wants to be here, in New York. Then he will get his nitro-propelled butt back to the mansion and join into the world-savage.  
  
I know what you're thinking. `Christ Jubes, you're not much better in the smug department.' But the truth is, I knew Wolvie wasn't gonna be staying long the moment I saw him storm into the big X's physics class. The look in his eyes told me that much. And everyone's expectations of him, are gonna fall flat, because eyes like that tell of a person who only lives up to their own expectations. Here's what I see happening. Some unknown time from now, Tall, Dark, and Growls is gonna come prancing in here and raise his eye-brow at the half dozen or so, "I told you so" looks of the people around him. Then he's gonna stay around just long enough to throw that southern' belle of his on the back of Cyke's bike and head for the wild yonder.  
  
Wanna know how I know?  
  
Cause when I saw Rogue right after Wolvie left, She had this wild-wanting  
  
look in her eyes. And kid-like crush or not, God help he who gets between a southern belle and whatever man it is she wants. 


End file.
